Peter Howell: Cannes 2023 festival lineup is a hotbed of sex, ‘cancelled’ stars (including Johnny Depp) and buzzy Canadian movies

Hollywood sex, sin and sparkle will be much in evidence next month at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

The French Riviera event, running May 16 to 27, will present the world premiere of “The Idol,” a controversial upcoming HBO TV series billed as “the sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood.” It’s cocreated by and co-stars Abel Tesfaye, the Toronto musician better known as The Weeknd.

Tesfaye plays an L.A. club owner and secret cult leader who exerts sexual and career control over a rising pop star played by Lily-Rose Depp. She’s the daughter of actor Johnny Depp, who stars as French King Louis XV in actor/director Maïwenn’s period romance “Jeanne du Barry,” the fest’s opening night film. Depp is looking for a comeback after winning last year’s highly publicized lawsuit against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, whose sexual assault allegations against him had threatened to cancel his career.

The Weeknd and the Depp dad and daughter are among a bevy of celebrities who will walk the Cannes red carpet in a year when North American talent and productions — including new films by Martin Scorsese (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), James Mangold (“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”), Wes Anderson (“Asteroid City”) and Todd Haynes (“May December”) — have a greater prominence than usual at Cannes, the world’s most prestigious film fest.

Cannes announced the films of its Official Selection early Thursday in a press conference in Paris led by festival head Thierry Frémaux and the fest’s new president, Iris Knobloch, the first woman to hold the title. Frémaux said Cannes programmers made their selections from the more than 2,000 films received from around the world.

“The Idol” is directed and cocreated by Sam Levinson, the creator and co-writer/co-director of the Emmy-winning series “Euphoria,” which depicts high school as a tumult of sex, drugs and traumatic experiences. Creative differences and production difficulties prompted the original director of “The Idol,” Amy Seimetz (“The Girlfriend Experience”), to leave the show last year, along with actor Susanna Son (“Red Rocket”). Remaining cast members include “Schitt’s Creek” star Dan Levy.

Two or three episodes of “The Idol” will premiere out of competition at Cannes, which presents TV shows it considers culturally significant, such as “Twin Peaks: The Return” in 2017.

Another Canadian is taking a sex-themed production to Cannes: “Simple Like Sylvain,” the third feature by Quebec writer/director Monia Chokri, whose previous film “Babysitter” recently won top honours at the Canadian Film Fest. It will have its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard sidebar program, which has its own set of awards.

Described as a comedy, it stars Magalie Lépine-Blondeau as Sophia, a 40-year-old married philosophy professor whose dormant sex life suddenly reawakens when she meets an entrepreneur named Sylvain (Pierre-Yves Cardinal).

The competition for the Palme d’Or, or Golden Palm, always a major fascination at Cannes, is missing Martin Scorsese’s new period crime drama “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Canadian actor Tantoo Cardinal and Canadian/American actor Brendan Fraser. Frémaux said he dearly wanted Scorsese’s first film at Cannes in nearly four decades to compete for the Palme, but Scorsese declined.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” will instead screen out of competition, as will James Mangold’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” a.k.a. “Indy Jones 5,” a blockbuster starring Harrison Ford in his finale as the whip-cracking title archeologist, in the company of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who plays his adventurous goddaughter.

But the Palme race will have Wes Anderson’s latest whimsy, “Asteroid City,” which features enough boldface to dominate several red carpets. The cast includes Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Jeffrey Wright and many others.

Also vying for the Palme is Todd Haynes’ “May December,” starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore in a story of a Hollywood actress (Portman) who travels to Maine to research the life of the woman (Moore) whom she’ll be portraying in a film.

The 19 films in this year’s Palme competition include a record six directed by women: Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero,” Alice Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera,” Catherine Breillat’s “Last Summer,” Justine Triet’s “Anatomie d’une chute,” Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s “Banel et Adama” and Kaouther Ben Hania’s documentary “Olfa’s Daughters.” The latter is the first doc to compete for the Palme in many years.

Many previous Palme contenders and/or winners are back in the hunt, among them Ken Loach (“The Old Oak), Aki Kaurismaki (“Fallen Leaves”), Kore-eda Hirokazu (“Monster”), Nanni Moretti (“Il Sol Dell’Avvenire”), Nuri Bilge Ceylan (“About Dry Grasses”) and Wim Wenders (“Perfect Days”).

A notable newcomer to the Palme contest is Britain’s Jonathan Glazer (“Under the Skin”), whose Holocaust-themed drama “The Zone of Interest” is based on a novel by Martin Amis.

There’s major star power even among the short films at Cannes this year.

The 30-minute western “Strange Way of Life” by Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar, starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as former hired guns with a new agenda and mutual affection, will have its world premiere at Cannes. It’s described as Almodóvar’s answer to “Brokeback Mountain.”

Some Cannes rumours didn’t come true Thursday: Greta Gerwig’s summer blockbuster “Barbie” and Woody Allen’s 50th film “Coup de Chance,” his first French-language movie, didn’t make the Official Selection.

But there are still more Cannes announcements to come, including next week’s unveiling of the Directors’ Fortnight and International Critics’ Week sidebars.

Star contributor Peter Howell is a movie critic in Toronto. Follow on Twitter: @peterhowellfilm.

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